Difference between revisions of "Why Women Live Longer Than Men"

Revision as of 14:44, 12 January 2022

Everywhere in the world women live longer than men - but this was not always the case. The available data from rich countries shows that women didn't live longer than men in the 19th century. Why do women live longer than men and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But it is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. For example, there is evidence that in rich countries the female advantage increased in part because infectious diseases used to affect women disproportionately a century ago, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ended up raising women's longevity disproportionately.

Everywhere in the world women tend to live longer than men
The first chart below shows life expectancy at birth for men and كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام women. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half an hour.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let's now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.